Rasmussen: Support for ObamaCare Hits New Low, at 41%

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% are opposed to the plan.

Senior citizens are less supportive of the plan than younger voters. In the latest survey, just 33% of seniors favor the plan while 59% are opposed. The intensity gap among seniors is significant. Only 16% of the over-65 crowd Strongly Favors the legislation while 46% are Strongly Opposed.

For the first time ever, a slight plurality of voters now express doubt that the legislation will become law this year. Forty-six percent (46%) say passage is likely while 47% say it is not. Those figures include 18% who say passage is Very Likely and 15% who say it is Not at All Likely. Sixty percent (60%) are less certain.

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The overall picture remains one of stability. Today’s record low support for the plan of 41% is just a point lower than the results found twice before. With the exception of a slight bounce earlier this month following the president’s nationally televised speech to Congress to promote the plan, support for it has remained in the low-to-mid 40s since early July. During that same time period, opposition has generally stayed in the low-to-mid 50s.

Intensity has been with the opposition from the beginning of the public debate. Currently, among all voters 23% Strongly Favor the legislative effort and 43% are Strongly Opposed.

Also, from the beginning of the debate, the has been a huge partisan divide. Currently 75% of Democrats favor the plan. Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Republicans are opposed, as are 72% of the unaffiliated.

The reason?

As Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal: “The most important fundamental is that 68% of American voters have health insurance coverage they rate good or excellent … Most of these voters approach the health care reform debate fearing that they have more to lose than to gain.” A Rasmussen video report shows that 53% of those with insurance believe it’s likely they would have to change coverage if the congressional plan becomes law.

Whether the federal government is raising taxes or mandating the states raise taxes -- either way, that's Obama raising taxes.

I have said this until blue in the face, but the basic problem is this: When the middle class, which largely has health insurance, says they want health insurance "reformed," what they mean is that they want to pay less for the service, or get more from their payments, or both simultaneously. What they want, in other words, is what every political bloc wants: More for themselves. Nothing really objectionable or surprising in that.

Obama's plan is not merely wholly unresponsive to that desire, but in fact goes the opposite way. Under ObamaCare, those with health insurance will have to pay more for it -- now, apparently, through taxes the states will raise on the middle class, with the federal government pretending they had nothing to do that -- and services will necessarily be cut through rationing.

The middle class' agitation for health care "reform" is not motived, by and large, by a desire to pay more taxes or get less care to help out those without insurance. They want their own burdens reduced, and their own benefits increased.

Instead of paying less, they are being made to pay more.

Instead of receiving more, they are being made to receive less.

And this is ObamaCare's central political problem, and no supposedly-soaring speeches or deliberately-obscure funding mechanisms and rationing procedures will change that.

At the current moment, the middle class thinks their health care insurance could be cheaper and better, but, compared to the alternative of paying a lot more for a lot less, they're realizing their coverage is all right now.

And, as they say, if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's "free."